The Silk Road Economic Belt: Implications for Azerbaijan

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung with the Levan Mikeladze Foundation organized the conference titled as “The Silk Road Economic Belt: The South Caucasus Perspective” on May 19th, 2017 in Tbilisi, Georgia. The conference discussions were organized on following questions:
• Could the Silk Road Economic Belt act as a regional binder, or might it become a regional divider and feed into negative competition?
• How might growing Chinese economic presence through the Silk Road Economic Belt in Georgia affect Georgia-Russia relations?
• As hard infrastructure needs to be accompanied by soft infrastructure and corresponding economic growth policies, is the institutional capital to tap Silk Road
Economic Belt investments present in Georgia and Azerbaijan?
• What strategic implications are there for the EU as the Silk Road Economic Belt’s footprint in the South Caucasus grows?

Dr. Vugar Bayramov and Cristina Carrion from CESD presented the Azerbaijani perspective in the conference.